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Archive for Uncategorized

One Way Street?

February 6, 2013 Uncategorized Comments Off on One Way Street?

I ran across this article here, about reintroducing exotic species to areas in which related/similar species have been driven out.  The idea being to help rebuild a manageable, functioning ecosystem in those areas (many of which are in the process of being reclaimed).

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/01/20/water-buffalo-extinct-europe-10000-years-spotted-outside-berlin?cmpid=tp-ad-outbrain-general

Which leads me to the idea of terraforming (because that’s the way my brain works).  It would be hard to argue that the rise of humanity has had anything less than a massive impact on the Earth and it’s ecosystems.  It’s what we do.  We adapt, not only ourselves, but the world around us to suit our needs.  Its what we do.

I know there is some resistance to ideas like the one postulated above.  Humans have a somewhat dodgy track record when it comes to invasive species.  Sometimes we introduce a species on purpose, sometimes on accident and then *whammo* that species does something unexpected, like over-competing, or over-breeding, or out and out changing it’s dietary habits so that it eats birds instead of snails…

The thing is though, we are going to change the planet.  We have already done so, and “footprint-minimizing” techniques can only go so far before they become crippling.  So why shouldn’t we put our big-*ss brains onto balancing those changes out.  Reclaiming territory is an excellent start.  Should we have put it in a state to be reclaimed in the first place?  Nope.  Should we be more careful to keep territory in better condition so we don’t have to reclaim it later?  Yes, but you know, sometimes you have to weigh the good against the bad.  Is it better to build a landfill to house garbage (which could be reclaimed at a later date) or is it better to ship the garbarge out and dump it into the ocean (where reclaiming is a whole different kettle of fish).

So I think this idea that we can change things for the good as well as the bad needs to be promoted a bit more, even if we aren’t putting things back exactly the way we found them, the idea that we can put things back at all, and that we need to time and space to learn how to put things back, is a very important one.

Irene Adler and the Unattainable Male

February 2, 2013 Uncategorized Comments Off on Irene Adler and the Unattainable Male

That’s a THING, right?  The stereotypical “unattainable” male protagonist in film and television.  We see it in literary works all the time, but the broader discussion online seems to center around more recent developments in media-centric storytelling, rather than in the written tradition.  I think it could easily be argued that the more modern re-visitations of Sherlock Holmes ought to fit neatly into this category.

A great many of the arguments I have been hearing of late seem to center around Irene Adler.  In the three more prominent Holmes reboots, she is seen as; a sociopathic dominatrix (who needs to be rescued at the end), a pickpocket and con artist (who may or may not be dead, but whom also needed to be rescued) and a Plot Device (since she was murdered before the show opens and is, instead, used as a driving force rather than a character).

And, while I have seen a great many analyses of how the original Irene Adler was a much more powerful female than any of her modern variants, I find that nobody has brought up what I feel is one of the more interesting aspects of the entire story (especially considering the time-period it was written in/for).

There is, in “A Scandal in Bohemia” possibly one of the neatest bits of role-reversal ever.  The idea that Sherlock Holmes, the quintessential “unattainable male” has fallen into the exact same trap.  He has, in his own turn, fallen for the unattainable female.

Outside of the fact that she feels the need to evade her stalker, Miss Adler has very little interest in Holmes.  In fact, she is far more interested in her own situation than in directly interacting with Holmes on any real level.  Instead we are left with Watson’s observations that to Holmes, she is always “The Woman”, which, combined with the fact that she is mentioned in future stories, though always in passing, suggests that she has continued to retain his attention, something we don’t see from many other subjects save Moriarty.

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